StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm's fantastically diverse campaign and entertaining online play make up for its lackluster writing.

It has been almost two years since Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty was released. Since then, fans of the Zerg have been waiting for the Heart of the Swarm expansion to tell that race's side of the story. The time has finally come for the Zerg to get their moment to shine--and shine they do. It's unfortunate that poor writing intrudes on the campaign, because the missions themselves are highly entertaining and varied, and online play provides plenty of cutthroat thrills.

Heart of the Swarm's single-player campaign serves as a great point of entry, boasting 20 missions with diverse objectives. Though they may not be as memorable as some of Wings of Liberty's finest missions (like the train robbery mission or the final stand of the Protoss), that doesn't change the fact that they are wonderful in their own right. One has you infiltrating a Protoss ship with a parasitic larva. After consuming its doomed host, the creature must slink around the ship, hiding from enemy units and collecting biomass until it evolves into a broodmother capable of spawning various Zerg creatures and destroying the vessel's engines and escape pods.

Another great level involves spreading creep (the living purple goo that oozes from Zerg structures) to wake up dormant scourge nests that can shoot down otherwise invincible Dominion ships. Elsewhere, you alternate between controlling Kerrigan's forces and commanding primal Zerg who must destroy the generators that power a psi destroyer device that makes Kerrigan's units explode. Other highlights include commanding Jim Raynor's battlecruiser, The Hyperion, during a space battle; having Kerrigan face off against a series of rivals in boss battles reminiscent of Diablo or World of WarCraft; and triumphing over a battle arena-style mission where AI-controlled infested Terrans act as cannon fodder while Kerrigan marches on a Dominion base. All this diversity keeps the campaign feeling constantly fresh.

One major difference between HOTS and WOL is the new campaign's focus on Kerrigan. Kerrigan gains levels by accomplishing mission objectives, making her hero unit even more powerful, and unlocking a tier of three abilities every 10 levels. You can switch out abilities between levels, and they range from special abilities that make Kerrigan more powerful (like shooting chain lightning with every attack or damaging multiple enemies) to powers that improve the swarm as a whole (like spawning two drones for the price of one). Generally, these are useful enough that all are tempting. However, there is one passive power that resurrects all dead Zerglings for free at your main hive at the rate of 10 or so every 30 seconds. That is pretty hard to pass up. Most Zerg units also gain three unique mutations that you can switch out between levels. For instance, you can fine-tune the acidic suicide bomber banelings to dish out more damage, increase the radius of their explosions, or make their explosions heal friendly units. The ability to switch Kerrigan's abilities and unit mutations between levels allows you to build an army that caters to your play style.

The other major change from WOL relates to research. In WOL, you often had to choose between two upgrades, but you never had the opportunity to test them in advance. In HOTS, you get to develop new strains of various Zerg units, but special evolution missions let you test both possible strains before you make your decision. Possibly the most overpowered example is the ultralisk, which is already the most formidable Zerg ground unit. You can create a strain of ultralisks that are resurrected almost immediately at the exact spot where they died. Couple that with a mutation that increases their health every time they hit a unit, tack on some hive queens following them for healing purposes, and finally add Kerrigan or a pack of antiair units, and you become practically unstoppable. This sort of thing can make HOTS' campaign much easier than WOL, but sometimes it's fun to see what unbalanced, ludicrous action plays out on screen.

Unfortunately, while the campaign is a blast, much of Heart of the Swarm's writing ranges from cliched, to mediocre, to comically bad. The single biggest disappointment is the depiction of Kerrigan. In the original games, when she was the self-described "queen bitch of the universe," Sarah Kerrigan was a great villain. She played the victim card to manipulate others into paving her way to complete dominion over the Zerg swarm. Once that was done, she mercilessly obliterated those useful idiots and mocked their grieving comrades. The old Kerrigan was manipulative, power-hungry, ruthless, and totally unapologetic about it. She had character.

The new Kerrigan is boring, and her actions are often incomprehensible. After a series of happenstances end her (entirely unconvincing) romantic subplot with Jim Raynor, she devotes all her energy toward killing the Dominion's dastardly Emperor Arcturus Mengsk. Of course, to accomplish this, she inevitably has to re-infest herself with Zerg essence and reclaim control of the swarm. This could have been the start of an interesting story about how she reconciles her recently reclaimed humanity with her role in the Zerg army. Unfortunately, Kerrigan's lack of consistency or even a coherent character arc ruins that opportunity. For example, at the end of one mission, she spares the lives of wounded Dominion soldiers, but upon returning to her ship, she orders a broodmother to wipe an entire planet without batting an eye. It feels like she just flips a coin to determine whether she's going to act like Genghis Khan or a bleeding heart.

Besides the campaign, there is, of course, the multiplayer, which remains thrilling whether you are competitive or just in the mood for a comp stomp. All three factions allow for a huge range of strategies. You will destroy and be destroyed in quick rushes and tense, protracted matches. Cloaked units will sneak past your defenses and slip into your base through an unnoticed blind spot. Both sides might simultaneously attack each others' strongholds with enormous air armadas, which is a terrifying circumstance to behold. A giant online community ensures that day or night, you will never hurt for either a ranked or unranked game. It's disappointing, though, that only seven units are new to the expansion.

Two of the new units are improved versions of existing ones. The Terran hellbat is an enhanced take on WOL's hellion, a flame-spewing vehicle that's perfect for burning Zerglings and that can transform into a humanoid mecha unit. The Protoss get the mothership core, which can eventually be upgraded into WOL's mothership, an incredible support ship that, among its other abilities, cloaks all nearby friendly units. The core doesn't have that power, but it can teleport itself and nearby units to a Protoss base of your choosing. Additionally, it detects cloaked units and is useful for blowing up ground units.

On the Zerg side, the fungus-like swarm host can burrow in the ground and release locusts, which are short-lived units that attack ground targets from range. While they are great base defenders in the campaign, they seem more useful for their ability to release locusts and then scurry off. Unfortunately, they are fairly slow and easily killed. The other new Zerg unit is the viper, a flying unit that can obscure the vision of enemy units or grab them with its prehensile tongue. Unfortunately, vipers can regenerate energy only by leeching health off of Zerg structures. Furthermore, air superiority units blow them out of the sky with stunning efficiency. Both of the new Zerg units could be deadly in the hands of a skilled micromanager, but mere mortals may have problems maximizing their potential.

Another new unit is the Terran widow mine, a cloaked contraption that burrows in the ground and fires missiles at any units that get too close. The Protoss, however, get two new air units that help cement their role as the undisputed masters of the skies. Their oracles are support ships that fiddle with the space-time continuum, slowing down enemy units considerably. Tempests are capital ships that have a respectable range and can target both ground and air units. Putting some of those and a few carriers next to a mothership is just nasty. You can't help but feel sorry for the Zerg, who, at least on a nonprofessional level, seem to have a hard time countering a massive aerial offensive.

Unsurprisingly, Heart of the Swarm glows with technical and artistic mastery. The cinematics are beautiful, even when the story veers into absurdity. One fantastically ridiculous sequence involves a masterfully animated fight between Kerrigan and Protoss hero Zeratul. Kerrigan zooms around, leaping 30 feet in the air to dive-bomb Zeratul, whaling on him with both physical and psychic attacks, and finally hurling the poor fellow through a pillar. At this point, she finally stops and asks him why he has come by for a visit. Naturally, he just wanted to help; no fight needed. Levels are attractive and feature diverse locales, including an inhospitable ice planet, heavily urbanized Terran cities, and a primordial world full of dinosaur-like primal Zerg. There are plenty of small details that breathe life into these worlds, like distinct flora and fauna or wreckage from previous battles. The units look great (especially when they are being slaughtered by Zerglings), and the sound design is properly alien.

While Starcraft II is a great real-time strategy game, it hasn't evolved much in light of other strategy games, though that familiarity is part of its appeal. Many fine touches--the "select whole army" button, the clever dialogue when you click on a unit too many times, the hotkeys for unique power--are appreciated, but not new. HOTS also lacks the contextual dialogue you hear in The Battle for Middle-earth or Relic's more recent games. It would be more interesting to hear Kerrigan shout something like "Zerglings, destroy that bunker" or "Retreat to the hive!" rather than incessantly repeat lines like "Mengsk must suffer" and "I am the swarm."

And so Heart of the Swarm is a safe expansion, but it's also an excellent one. If you've spent the last two years hankering to run amok with the delightfully diverse Zerg swarm, you're in luck, because you'll have no trouble scratching that itch with the gameplay you know and love. The lackluster story is disappointing, but taking control of the Zerg--those nutty world-devouring insectoid-dinosaur hybrids--makes Heart of the Swarm well worth the investment.

Just finished Heart of the Swarm and realized that Blizzard went even
further with this game. More mission variety, better art, stunning
visuals and so on. Story seems not so special on paper, when you think
about it to be game about revenge but it is more about Evolution and
origin about the zerg and uniting forces for something bigger to come.
Absolutely brilliant game.

After a year the price has gone down for the whole series. Nice. Eat it GreySeven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Im dumb. :I

I'm really tempted to buy Heart of the Swarm now that it had time to mature and get updated, I hope it will be like a good old wine; If not, I will release my frustration in multi-player games, it's a win-win situation ! :)

The review pretty much mirrored my thoughts on Kerrigan. Even the other characters in the game thought she was dumb - a prime example being Gen. Warfield when he said Raynor sacrificed everything to make Kerrigan human again, but she just went ahead and shat on his sacrifice and became infested again, this time at HER OWN FREE WILL. And in between she bitches about getting revenge on Mengsk for "killing" Raynor. Yeah, right. If Raynor saw what she did he'd probably say "not again. Bitch, you're killing me." I felt really stupid playing her in HOTS

I also agree with the sentiment regarding SC1 Kerrigan. She was so brutal, relentless, deceptive, and unforgiving back then that despite hating her guts, it made playing her a unique experience.

since HotS, as in WoL, keeps the old good SC atmosphere that fills u from 1 sec play till last cutscene, i m pretty much happy for the hours i spent in the campaign. after all it s the same atmosphere that kept me a sc fan all these years, since i first saw a zerg splatt on my screen. (and what a mighty 2d atmosphere that was, that it didnt require nor the money nor the connection back then , remember?) I disagree about the story, i just feel that, compared to WoL , HotS was a bit of a "hurry up" work... the storyline about kerrig is explained , if ofc u understand the story, in fact since we re taklin about a "cured" queen this time, with more humanity in her, i thnk the fact is that the 2 sides fighting inside her become more obvious, so yes she s not that "lawful evil" anymore, but every anti-hero has white + black inside, thats the point after all. i agree that it s less epic than WoL, but u expect that from a mid-story part, since the grand finale must be THE epic.

in conclusion , my opinion is that this game is another true sc game with everything i love about sc in it, but i must admit, that the original rts part is dying more and more, its another sacrifice to the altar of profit, its making our lives awful, and i fcin hate it. ty all

I loved the campaign story. Kerrigan is conufsed, of course her actions make no sense. I think her waffling back and forth is appropriate and adds good tension to the story. Someone commented that this is the equivalent of "Empire Strikes Back", and I agree. It's the middle story. Of course it ends unresolved! I kinda wish it was even a darker ending.

another deception from a major franchise. they seem to have dumped the "Strategy" part in the RTS genre. no macro possible, and you can hardly micro kerrigan every now and then, since most, if not all the missions are for 6 yo kid: "do this, kill that, protect this..." and plus the fact that they're often time-based, that leaves very little room to strategy. the solo campaign is just one long tutorial, with a boring and so predictable story line. and no LAN support just finished to kill the pleasure from playing what was once the best RTS around.

awesome new units, interesting missions, however, i have never ever wanted to skip a cutscene or mute the conversations between the characters in a game before, until Heart of Swarm came out. And to think we waited so long for this. The review is fair; I completely agree; but hey, its blizzard, they don't care about the single player campaign as much as their booming online community

I was disappointed with Heart of the Swarm's conclusion, because Kerrigan returns to being the Queen of Blades, after having been rescued from that bondage (which was the entire purpose of Wings of Liberty). Its ending would totally suck, if it were the final conclusion to the story. However, Amon must be defeated, so I can see how a powerful force like Kerrigan is still necessary, along with that of Raynor, to fight him. Perhaps, HOTS is simply the obligatory and dark "Empire Strikes Back" part of the saga. At the end, Blizzard needs to give these characters and the fans the positive resolution they deserve.

The story isn't nearly as absurd as you claim Mr. reviewer. There is some cheese, granted, but unlike your review that takes story elements out of context, when seen in the correct order and considering her character at the times of those decisions, they make sense.

story - surprising and interesting (not sure what you all talking about here [you cant compare The Witcher {RPG with RTS dummies} or TBFM? really? lmfao GS)

Gamespot - did you actually understood the story? Jim turned Kerri back to human using Xel'naga tech removing near all physical changes appart of sexi zerg dreadlocks) and completely wiping out memory of it. Of course when she undergo PRIMAL not CORRUPTED zerg transformation again she regain her humanity and therefore is not that cold blooded **** anymore. Do your friking homework before you actually do reviews damn.

PS - there are books out too - it might help you out a bit if you cant comprehend from the game.

JUST TO EXPLAIN TO YOU AS IF YOU ARE GOING TO READ THIS YOU MIGHT COMPLAIN ABOUT IT GAMESPOT PPL - XEL'NAGA - CREATORS OF CORRUPTED ZERGS AND TEACHERS OF PROTOS - tools of their time to resurrect their own species as they forgot how to multiply (lmao). So in fact able to do anything but not multiplying (that's the only strange and negative thing about the whole series from me - live for millenniums and older then the universe and yet extinct )

Game is good, game is solid. I played it in my friends house and saw that it has balanced gameplay and new (old indeed) units makes the game prettier than it was. So it's worth it's time and for a multiplayer experience, this game is at the top of its class. But i dont think it deserves a brand new game title and a brand new game price. I won't buy it. I have more words to say though.

This story should be an April Fools day joke. Game has a story only a child could find interesting. Its so far away from being epic. With this campaign story, no one will play solo. Click multiplayer and enter a server. Don't even think about playing campaign. Are you curious about the story? Open youtube and watch the videos in order. That will save you a lot time and patiance.

I've played all the Blizzard games since the original WC and Diablo titles, even got sucked into WoW for a couple years, and I was probably one of the few people in the world who thought D3 was pretty cool. That said, I was disappointed with HoS. It probably had a lot to do with the fact I never really cared for the Zerg, and let's face it, it's just a lot easier to make the auxiliary Terran characters interesting than it is to give character to Zergies.

Missions were just, kind of, meh. Most of all though, I was disappointed with the fact that the "new" units were just variations of old units. Come on! Give me more than one completely new ground unit (pretty cool - I'll give you that), and a worthless air unit. Blah. The actual story was pretty bad, but the only game I've ever played where the story was a major selling point was The Witcher 2, so, whatever. I don't know what kind of person could objectively say HoS had anything other than a bad story/execution.

I've gone back and played through the WoL campaign multiple times, and
probably will play through it again in the future, but I doubt that I'll
ever play HoS again (once I've gotten all the campaign achievements).
That was my initial reaction after finishing the campaign too: it's ok,
but it's a definite letdown after WoL.

I'm still kind of annoyed with the whole "online all the time" element. I was living overseas when WoL came out, and had HUGE issues playing it due to my crap internet connection. Now, my current internet isn't great, but for the most part, it hasn't been a major hindrance to playing. Multiplayer just isn't an option though, so I think I am justified in being annoyed at paying full price for an expansion. I'll do it again for LoV though because I really like the SC franchise. An 8 seems about right in terms of my thoughts on the game.

@d1versify ... No. It's an over-produced dog of a game, that ultimately fails because there were clearly too many chefs in the kitchen. Just like Diablo 3. Blizzard has no talent left, they just have oodles of cash and fans that will give their left nut for something with a Blizzard sticker on it.

@claypigs to me - raynor and kerri aquired the xelnaga artifact so they can reverse the zerg change at any time now (correct me if im mistaken though). So even though theyall planet destroyers ( Raynor and Kerrigan) I HOPE that we get some happy ending - as im starting to hate that theres no more of it in games or movies - everything ends bad these days damn.

@BulKathos22 lmao - did u actually played the multiplayer for at least 100 matches against zerg? Let me answear for you - no u did not. To 99% ppl i know and majority of profi players - mp is balanced near perfection. LEARN HOW TO COUNTER AND THEN COMPLAIN .

I agree. MGS4 was almost THE perfect game, it was and still is the gold standard of how an epic game should be---- polished to ultimate shine , universally adaptable gameplay flexibility , non-stop actions, diverse level design and story wise no stones left unturned. A feat never before accomplished.

@majlos1@claypigs Yes, the artifact could again cure Kerrigan and the swarm, but remember the prophecy that Kerrigan had to survive to prevent the end of the world. It's still coming, so she still has to lead the Zerg against Amon. I partially agree with you about wanting a happy ending. The ending doesn't necessarily have to be "happy", but should show the triumph of good over evil. It's strange, because although Kerrigan is a somewhat sympathetic character, she has been the anti-hero of the series. Now, all of the sudden, she's a hero! The final conclusion should show Kerrigan choosing Jim and peace over continuing to terrorize the galaxy as the Queen of Blades.

its like say that LOTR movies after second one are only about bunch of hobits, trees and elves saving Helms deep lmfao - and not even bother to wait for third installment to see (assuming you didnt read the books, which i did so i knew anyway)

@majlos1 @BulKathos22 I am currently in Masters League so yes, I have played more than 100 multiplayer matches against Zerg. All SC II community knows and fully understands that the Zerg is Blizzards favorite race and that's why its so imbalanced. I doubt about your skill but in high level of play (masters league and above you can easily understand why Zerg is imba). Blizzard was a very good gaming company but nowdays they fail to balance their games (SC II, WoW PvP and Diablo PvP) because they always have a favorite race/class.

Once 6th minute passes and Zerg is full of drones and even with 3 Hatches, if the player is skilled enough, they are unstoppable even for Terrans, as their units DPS and supply is completely broken.

So I am saying again that GS review is compelely right (even if you are a Zerg player and you don't want to admit it as you get '' free wins '' in multiplayer).

I'm sure those will be fine games, but can it deliver the sheer quality standard,give the sense of full satisfaction when you finish the MGS4 SP campaign? I hope so, I always hoped there can be more games like it.

Good games deliver a great enjoyable storyline but it's like looking into a spying glass, the FoV was narrow and field of depth limited. While a masterpiece deliver its sheer amount of quality content on multiple angle, scale and depth, zooming seamlessly in and out of its contents to complete the whole, grand storyline.

@BulKathos22 Exactly which SC2 community are you talking about? In both US.BATTLE.NET, TeamLiquid, AND /rStarcraft in Reddit, they complain about Skytoss, zerg has literally not been uttered a single time since since the Fungal Growth nerf, other than 'how to deal with skytoss as zerg.'

The lead balance designer, David Kim, plays random on the ladder... How is Zerg obviously his favorite race?

At the last MLG a Zerg took first. However, Less than 33% of zerg players won their games at MLG. Divided by 3 races that sounds perfectly balanced? (Maths is hard)

Only in 1 build now does a Zerg take his 3rd by 6 minutes. It's against protoss FFE, and with the new Protoss Air units stopping a fast 3rd by zerg and flat out winning is the easiest thing in the game.

Obviously Zerg, is imbalanced.Hell if you want to 1v1. We can, ill even let you play as zerg ;)

Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm is the second of the three games for Starcraft II that picks up the story of StarCraft II where Wings of Liberty left off. The story focuses on Sarah Kerrigan and her quest to reunite the Swarm and exact revenge on Arcturus Mengsk.